Many people use certain items such as cell phones, keys, cigarettes, or similar item too many times throughout a day. So much in fact that these people need a way to cut-off access to these items for certain predetermined amounts of times. Lock-out boxes are known and used to prevent a person from accessing certain items or only accessing the items at certain programmed times.
Daily life is filled with many distractions for all of us. While most of these distractions are necessary to help keep a balance of work and play in our lives, many people may occasionally have the tendency to allow some of these distractions to take control of their lives. Age is typically not a factor in the amount of distraction time, although the items doing the distracting may change over time. Young children may spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the television or computer, while adults may spend too much time doing some online gambling or spending money on credit cards. Accordingly, while self control and realization of one's limits is critical, there exists a need for a means by which physical items that allow for such distractions and which allow for unlimited usage impulses can be controlled.
Various attempts have been made to provide a lock-out box. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. patents. U.S. Patent No. 2007/0180873, issued in the name of Yen et al., describes a lockable container for securing items.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,129,536, issued in the name of Robinson, describes a sealable food storage container with a timed locking mechanism.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,825,753, issued in the name of Cardinale et al., describes a lockbox having a programmable opening to provide access to the contents at desired times.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more disadvantages. Many such devices are not suited for items which need charged from a power source. Other devices are too large in size to be transported by a user. Accordingly, there exists a need for a lock-out box without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.